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IMO I would probably hirer a football player with a .5 gpa who clearly outperformed his athletic ability than the average college grad. Football is harder mentally and discipline wise than most college majors. And college majors rarely matter for what you do in business.
Oh, he went on to a successful career.
I would almost compare major college football to engineering. Not in terms of math but it’s a hard major. Even with an athletic training staff there is still a lot of discipline of actually doing the work. Understanding your role in the scheme can be complex. Some athletic geniuses can just be isolated but many positions require an intellect that’s as hard as basic accounting or getting thru a marketing major.
Someone like say Tommy Rees since a ND example was used above who was caught by the cops running from a keggar but managed to be a starting college QB is going to be a functional cog in any organization he ends up in.
I went from playing semi-pro Rugby, where there is some complexity but you can essentially get to a professional level in most positions by being athletic and dogged enough following the ball to about two years of American Football at the highest level of my country (Maybe a 1.5/10 in the grand scheme of America but like people took it reasonably seriously) and even low level amateur Football had about 10x the complexity of Rugby.
I feel like interior Defensive Line is like the only position you can get by without having to atleast instinctively understand a ton of variables and factors in the game and being a premium athlete. If you've got the combination of understanding of a complex system, social clout and boosterism that gets you to a D1 starting QB you should be fine in the vast majority of the economy especially if you're not necessarily a key decisionmaker tasked with progressing bleeding edge science.
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Most positions! For the love of god no wide receivers though.
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